Unemployment Rate in the United States remained unchanged at 4.20 percent in May. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Unemployment Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

The number of unemployed persons in The United States increased to 7237 Thousand in May of 2025 from 7166 Thousand in April of 2025. This dataset provides - United States Unemployed Persons - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

This dataset contains unemployment rates for the U.S. (1948 - Present) and California (1976 - Present). The unemployment rate represents the number of unemployed as a percentage of the labor force. Labor force data are restricted to people 16 years of age and older, who currently reside in 1 of the 50 states or the District of Columbia, who do not reside in institutions (e.g., penal and mental facilities, homes for the aged), and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces. This rate is also defined as the U-3 measure of labor underutilization.

Initial Jobless Claims in the United States increased to 247 thousand in the week ending May 31 of 2025 from 239 thousand in the previous week. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Initial Jobless Claims - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Context

This is a dataset that I built by scraping the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. I was looking for county-level unemployment data and realized that there was a data source for this, but the data set itself hadn't existed yet, so I decided to write a scraper and build it out myself.

Content

This data represents the Local Area Unemployment Statistics from 1990-2016, broken down by state and month. The data itself is pulled from this mapping site:

https://data.bls.gov/map/MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=county&seasonal=u

Further, the ever-evolving and ever-improving codebase that pulled this data is available here:

https://github.com/jayrav13/bls_local_area_unemployment

Acknowledgements

Of course, a huge shoutout to bls.gov and their open and transparent data. I've certainly been inspired to dive into US-related data recently and having this data open further enables my curiosities.

Inspiration

I was excited about building this data set out because I was pretty sure something similar didn't exist - curious to see what folks can do with it once they run with it! A curious question I had was surrounding Unemployment vs 2016 Presidential Election outcome down to the county level. A comparison can probably lead to interesting questions and discoveries such as trends in local elections that led to their most recent election outcome, etc.

Next Steps

Version 1 of this is as a massive JSON blob, normalized by year / month / state. I intend to transform this into a CSV in the future as well.

Overview

This repository contains file of monthly US Unemployment rates going back to 1948

Acknowledgment

Would like to thank the book "Practical Time Series Analysis" for alerting me to this dataset.

The number of employed persons in The United States decreased to 163273 Thousand in May of 2025 from 163969 Thousand in April of 2025. This dataset provides - United States Employed Persons - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

This dataset contains information about the unemployment rate in Austin (SD23 measure EOA.A.1). Texas Workforce Comission provides Texas Labor Market Information for Austin, the Austin Round-Rock MSA, Texas, and the United States. This dataset includes the average number of people in the civilian labor force, the employment count, the unemployment count, and the unemployment rate for Austin, the Austin Round-Rock MSA, Texas, and the United States. The unemployment rate can be useful in understanding economic and workforce trends in Austin over time. View more details and insights related to this dataset on the story page: https://data.austintexas.gov/stories/s/Percentage-Unemployment-Rate/ehhu-nafn/

The number of people who are unemployed as a percentage of the active labour force (i.e. employed and unemployed).

This layer contains the latest 14 months of unemployment statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The data is offered at the nationwide, state, and county geography levels. Puerto Rico is included. These are not seasonally adjusted values.The layer is updated monthly with the newest unemployment statistics available from BLS. There are attributes in the layer that specify which month is associated to each statistic. Most current month: April 2025 (preliminary values at the state and county level)The attributes included for each month are:Unemployment rate (%)Count of unemployed populationCount of employed population in the labor forceCount of people in the labor forceData obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data downloaded: May 28th, 2025Local Area Unemployment Statistics table download: https://www.bls.gov/lau/#tablesLocal Area Unemployment FTP downloads:State and CountyNationData Notes:This layer is updated automatically when the BLS releases their most current monthly statistics. The layer always contains the most recent estimates. It is updated within days of the BLS's county release schedule. BLS releases their county statistics roughly 2 months after-the-fact. The data is joined to 2023 TIGER boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau.Monthly values are subject to revision over time.For national values, employed plus unemployed may not sum to total labor force due to rounding.As of the January 2022 estimates released on March 18th, 2022, BLS is reporting new data for the two new census areas in Alaska - Copper River and Chugach - and historical data for the previous census area - Valdez Cordova.As of the March 17th, 2025 release, BLS now reports data for 9 planning regions in Connecticut rather than the 8 previous counties.To better understand the different labor force statistics included in this map, see the diagram below from BLS:

Employment Rate in the United States decreased to 59.70 percent in May from 60 percent in April of 2025. This dataset provides - United States Employment Rate- actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

This layer contains the latest 14 months of unemployment statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The data is offered at the nationwide, state, and county geography levels. Puerto Rico is included. These are not seasonally adjusted values.The layer is updated monthly with the newest unemployment statistics available from BLS. There are attributes in the layer that specify which month is associated to each statistic. Most current month: April 2025 (preliminary values at the state and county level)The attributes included for each month are:Unemployment rate (%)Count of unemployed populationCount of employed population in the labor forceCount of people in the labor forceData obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data downloaded: May 28th, 2025Local Area Unemployment Statistics table download: https://www.bls.gov/lau/#tablesLocal Area Unemployment FTP downloads:State and CountyNationData Notes:This layer is updated automatically when the BLS releases their most current monthly statistics. The layer always contains the most recent estimates. It is updated within days of the BLS's county release schedule. BLS releases their county statistics roughly 2 months after-the-fact. The data is joined to 2023 TIGER boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau.Monthly values are subject to revision over time.For national values, employed plus unemployed may not sum to total labor force due to rounding.As of the January 2022 estimates released on March 18th, 2022, BLS is reporting new data for the two new census areas in Alaska - Copper River and Chugach - and historical data for the previous census area - Valdez Cordova.As of the March 17th, 2025 release, BLS now reports data for 9 planning regions in Connecticut rather than the 8 previous counties.To better understand the different labor force statistics included in this map, see the diagram below from BLS:

****Dataset Overview**** This dataset contains historical macroeconomic data, featuring key economic indicators in the United States. It includes important metrics such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Retail Sales, Unemployment Rate, Industrial Production, Money Supply (M2), and more. The dataset spans from 1993 to the present and includes monthly data on various economic indicators, processed to show their rate of change (either percentage or absolute difference, depending on the indicator).

provenance

The data in this dataset is sourced from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED provides access to a wide range of economic data, including key macroeconomic indicators for the United States. My work involved calculating the rate of change (ROC) for each indicator and reorganizing the data into a more usable format for analysis. For more information and access to the full database, visit FRED's website.

Purpose and Use for the Kaggle Community:

This dataset is a valuable resource for data scientists, economists, and analysts interested in understanding macroeconomic trends, performing time series analysis, or building predictive models. With the rate of change included, users can quickly assess the growth or contraction in these indicators month-over-month. This dataset can be used for:

• Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA): Understanding historical economic trends. -Time Series Forecasting: Building models to predict future economic conditions. -Macroeconomic Analysis: Analyzing the relationship between various economic indicators. -Machine Learning Projects: Using the data as features to predict financial or economic outcomes. -By utilizing this dataset, users can perform in-depth analysis on the impact of macroeconomic changes, compare the historical performance of various indicators, and experiment with different time series forecasting techniques.

****Column Descriptions****

Year: The year of the observation.

Month: The month of the observation (1-12).

Industrial Production: Monthly data on the total output of US factories, mines, and utilities.

Manufacturers' New Orders: Durable Goods: Measures the value of new orders placed with manufacturers for durable goods, indicating future production activity.

Consumer Price Index (CPIAUCSL): A measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.

Unemployment Rate: The percentage of the total labor force that is unemployed but actively seeking employment.

Retail Sales: The total receipts of retail stores, indicating consumer spending and economic activity.

Producer Price Index: Measures the average change over time in the selling prices received by domestic producers for their output.

Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE): A measure of the prices paid by consumers for goods and services, used in calculating inflation.

National Home Price Index: A measure of changes in residential real estate prices across the country.

All Employees, Total Nonfarm: The number of nonfarm payroll employees, an important indicator of the labor market.

Labor Force Participation Rate: The percentage of the working-age population that is either employed or actively looking for work.

Federal Funds Effective Rate: The interest rate at which depository institutions lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight.

Building Permits: The number of building permits issued for residential and non-residential buildings, a leading indicator of construction activity.

Money Supply (M2): The total money supply, including cash, checking deposits, and easily convertible near money.

Personal Income: The total income received by individuals from all sources, including wages, investments, and government transfers.

Trade Balance: The difference between a country's imports and exports, indicating the net trade flow.

Consumer Sentiment: The index reflecting consumer sentiment and expectations for the future economic outlook.

Consumer Confidence: A measure of how optimistic or pessimistic consumers are regarding their expected financial situation and the economy.

Notes on Interest Rates Please note that for the Federal Funds Effective Rate (FEDFUNDS), the dataset includes the absolute change in basis points (bps), not the rate of change. This means that the dataset reflects the direct change in the interest rate rather than the percentage change month-over-month. The change is represented in basis points, where 1 basis point equals 0.01%.

Analysis of ‘Strategic Measure_Percentage Unemployment Rate’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/fb383985-5de9-4f55-ba17-581333f28ba9 on 26 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

This dataset contains information about the unemployment rate in Austin (SD23 measure EOA.A.1). Texas Workforce Comission provides Texas Labor Market Information for Austin, the Austin Round-Rock MSA, Texas, and the United States.

This dataset includes the average number of people in the civilian labor force, the employment count, the unemployment count, and the unemployment rate for Austin, the Austin Round-Rock MSA, Texas, and the United States. The unemployment rate can be useful in understanding economic and workforce trends in Austin over time.

View more details and insights related to this dataset on the story page: https://data.austintexas.gov/stories/s/Percentage-Unemployment-Rate/ehhu-nafn/

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

Are people under economic stress more or less likely to vote, and why? With large observational datasets and a survey experiment involving unemployed Americans, we show that unemployment depresses participation. But it does so more powerfully when the unemployment rate is low, less powerfully when it is high. Whereas earlier studies have explained lower turnout among the unemployed by stressing the especially high opportunity costs these would-be voters face, our evidence points to the psychological effects of unemployment and of campaign messages about it. When unemployment is high, challengers have an incentive to blame the incumbent, thus eliciting anger among the unemployed. Psychologists have shown anger to be an approach or mobilizing emotion. When joblessness is low, campaigns tend to ignore it. The jobless thus remain in states of depression and self-blame, which are demobilizing emotions.

Initial Claims for UI released by the CT Department of Labor. Initial Claims are applications for Unemployment Benefits. Initial Claims may not result in receiving UI benefits if the individual doesn't qualify.

The initial claims reported in these tables are "processed" claims to the extent that duplicates and "reopened" claims have been eliminated. The claim counts in this dataset may not match claim counts from other sources.

Unemployment claims tabulated in this dataset represent only one component of the unemployed. Claims do not account for those not covered under the Unemployment system (e.g. federal workers, railroad workers or religious workers) or the unemployed self-employed.

Claims filed for a particular week will change as time goes on and the backlog is addressed.

Continued Claims for UI released by the CT Department of Labor. Continued Claims are total number of individuals being paid benefits in any particular week. Claims data can be access directly from CT DOL here: https://www1.ctdol.state.ct.us/lmi/claimsdata.asp

Claims are disaggregated by age, education, industry, race/national origin, sex, and wages.

The claim counts in this dataset may not match claim counts from other sources.

Unemployment claims tabulated in this dataset represent only one component of the unemployed. Claims do not account for those not covered under the Unemployment system (e.g. federal workers, railroad workers or religious workers) or the unemployed self-employed.

Claims filed for a particular week will change as time goes on and the backlog is addressed.

For data on continued claims at the town level, see the dataset "Continued Claims for Unemployment Benefits by Town" here: https://data.ct.gov/Government/Continued-Claims-for-Unemployment-Benefits-by-Town/r83t-9bjm

For data on initial claims see the following two datasets:

"Initial Claims for Unemployment Benefits in Connecticut," https://data.ct.gov/Government/Initial-Claims-for-Unemployment-Benefits/j3yj-ek9y

"Initial Claims for Unemployment Benefits by Town," https://data.ct.gov/Government/Initial-Claims-for-Unemployment-Benefits-by-Town/twvc-s7wy

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Level - Looking For Full-Time Work (LNS13100000) from Jan 1963 to May 2025 about full-time, 16 years +, household survey, unemployment, and USA.

The American Community Survey (ACS) is an ongoing survey that provides vital information on a yearly basis about the USA and its people. This dataset contains only a subset of the variables that have been deemed most relevant. More info: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/about.html

This dataset provides unemployment data for San Joaquin County CA from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Local Area Unemployment Statistics.

Labor force and unemployment estimates for states and local areas are developed by state workforce agencies to measure local labor market conditions under a federal-state cooperative program. The Department of Labor develops the concepts, definitions, and technical procedures which are used by state agencies for preparation of labor force and unemployment estimates.

These estimates are derived from a variety of sources, including the Current Population Survey, the Current Employment Statistics survey, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, various programs at the Census Bureau, and unemployment insurance claims data from the state workforce agencies.

To establish uniform labor force concepts and definitions in all states and areas consistent with those used for the U.S. as a whole, monthly national estimates of employment and unemployment from the Current Population Survey are used as controls (benchmarks) for the state labor force statistics.